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Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he believes the Obama administration did negotiate with terrorists in securing the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — and that they didn’t get a very good deal.

“I think the whole transaction represents really bad staff work,” Mr. Cheney said on Fox News’ “The Kelly File.” “I’d be very, very careful before you run the president out to sort of claim victory at having earned the release of somebody who, in effect, went AWOL, apparently, and left his post.”

Five former Guantanamo Bay prisoners were transferred to Qatar in order to secure the freedom of Sgt. Bergdahl, who had been held in captivity by the Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly five years. The Obama administration used the government of Qatar as a go-between and has said the transaction did not constitute negotiating with terrorists.

“I think there is a distinct possibility that these five will, in fact, go back into the battle,” the former vice president said. “I think the odds are that they will, in fact, do that and that we’ll end up paying another kind of price because of the transaction that’s been negotiated here.”